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The Ghost Ship Queen Berry – Part 03

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Translator: Kell

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A heavy atmosphere filled the waterlogged lounge. Only Victorique remained calm and indifferent, while the other four were either hanging their heads low or glaring at each other.

Drip. Drip.

Cloudy drops of water fell from the ceiling and seawater-soaked walls to the floor. A damp air enveloped the entire lounge.

“This ship once carried eleven boys and girls,” Maurice began. “We called them Hares.” Shivering, he hugged his knees like a child.

The other four exchanged glances.

Julie Guile rose to her feet and moved closer to Maurice. “What do you mean?”

“What happened to them?” Ned Baxter asked in a low voice.

“They died. Killed each other.”

“Wh-Why?!”

“It was part of the plan,” Maurice mumbled, raising his head slowly. Terror and despair filled his eyes as he stared at the bloody words on the wall. His pale lips parted. “I can’t tell you any more. It would be a breach of code. Anyway, at the end of that fateful night, after the bodies of the kids were recovered, the Queen Berry was sent to the bottom of the sea. Immediately after we finished the recovery work and pulled out, the coast guard rushed to check the ship, but of course the inside was empty. Since there were still traps left, and signs of struggle, they tried to do an investigation, but the ship was already sinking. A-And you…” Maurice pointed at Kazuya. “The ghost story that you heard from your classmate is based on that incident. When I heard you say that the Queen Berry frequently reappears at sea to lure people, I was certain.” His voice turned grim. “This ship is a ghost ship!”

Ned and Julie looked at each other. They wore dubious expressions, but their faces were tight from fear.

Ned grabbed a tennis ball and tossed it up. He caught the ball as it fell and threw it up again. Julie got up and started pacing back and forth in the lounge.

“This ghost ship is raised to the surface by the children’s grudges,” Maurice continued. “It’s been ten years since then.” His shoulders began to shake, his face ashen. “The adults who caused their death were gathered here and died. We’re next.” His shivering spread through his whole body, and with a despairing look, he added, “There’s no way we can get to the radio room! We’re being cursed by those kids… by the Hares!”

“…Pfft.”

Someone snickered. Maurice shot Kazuya a glare, but he shook his head. He looked to the side and saw Victorique sitting with her head down. Her face was hidden by her long, blonde hair that looked like golden threads. Her small shoulders were shaking.

“…Um, Victorique?”

“Uhh…”

“Stop acting weird.” Kazuya reached for her hair and brushed it up.

Tears were running down Victorique’s cheeks… from laughter.

“Ahahahahaha!”

“What’s so funny?!”

Ned stopped fiddling with the tennis ball, and Julie stopped pacing around. Startled, they stared at the laughing Victorique.

Victorique took out a pipe from her bag in an elegant motion. Ignoring the adults staring at her blankly, she lit it up and took a puff.

She slowly exhaled, directing the smoke toward Maurice’s face. The man coughed as he wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes with his fingers.

After smoking her pipe for a while, Victorique reached into the pocket of her dress with her free hand and pulled out an envelope. Kazuya recognized it. It was the invitation that Victorique found in Roxane’s yacht.

“Oh, I got one too,” Ned said.

“Me too,” Julie chimed in. “I found it in my car.”

“Let me ask you a question, Maurice.” Victorique chuckled at the foreign affairs official, who was three times her age. “Do you think a ghost would write an invitation?”

Maurice gulped, taken aback. The others snapped back to their senses. They exchanged glances, blinking repeatedly as if they had just woken up from a dream.

“B-But that doesn’t make sense,” Maurice said, puzzled. He wanted to argue back, but he wasn’t exactly sure what to say. “This ship did sink to the bottom of the sea. And what about those bloody words on the wall? The power was out for less than ten seconds! No human being can write a long sentence in big letters in such a short time. And this lounge looks completely different than before!” Tears welled in his cloudy eyes. “How do you explain all that?! If it’s not ghosts, then who did it?!”

“A human being, obviously,” Victorique said in a low voice.

She had finally stopped laughing. Ned was clutching the tennis ball anxiously. Julie was pacing around, fiddling with the heart-shaped pendant around her neck like it was a habit.

She walked five steps, then turned. Another five steps. It was an unconscious but precise movement. Victorique shot her a glance and frowned a little.

The pendant was made of enamel. It was quite old, with the paint peeling off in places. It had a very childish design that didn’t match her red dress, but Julie kept caressing it with her fingers like it was something precious.

“A human can do all of that. Think about it a little.”

“What? What do you mean?” Maurice moved his face closer to the girl.

Victorique squirmed in disgust and turned to Kazuya. “Kujou, you explain,” she said crossly.

“Huh? Explain what?”

“Reconstructing chaos.”

“…Me?”

Clear, green eyes held Kazuya’s gaze. A mere three seconds later, he lost the staring contest.

“So um, chaos, or the mysteries of this world,” he began. “They’re like, you know, pieces, which you throw in a pot to stew. Like, um, a mystery hot pot. You fill your bowl, the fragments of chaos is reconstructed, and then the mystery is solved, but the inspector takes the credit… Wait, what am I talking about again?”

“That’s enough, you mediocre egghead.”

“Wh-What? I’ll have you know, I wouldn’t be able to study abroad if I was mediocre,” Kazuya mumbled.

Victorique ignored him and spoke. “First of all, ghosts. They don’t write invitations. You understand that, yes?”

Ned nodded first. Julie followed, and finally Maurice nodded reluctantly.

Victorique waved the invitation. “Someone wrote this and gathered us here.”

“But this ship is supposed to be at the bottom of the sea!”

“How do you know this is the Queen Berry that sank ten years ago?”

Maurice tried to say something, but closed his mouth.

“I offer a hypothesis,” Victorique continued.

All of them watched the girl who kept talking with such confidence with bated breath.

“‘This is a recreation of the ship made by someone familiar with the past incident.”

Silence.

Ned and Maurice looked at each other and fell silent. Kazuya was also scowling. The only sound in the flooded lounge was the dripping of water.

Eventually, Julie came to her senses. “What do you mean by that?” she asked gingerly.

Victorique looked straight back at her. She still assumed the same confident attitude. “It is a very simple and logical explanation,” she began in her usual low and raspy voice. “First of all, the Queen Berry is said to have sunk ten years ago. If that’s true, then the ship we’re on now is a well-made replica.”

“What…?”

“If you think about it that way, it all makes sense. It would explain the ghostly phenomena as well.”

Julie frowned and thought about it. “I’m not sure I follow,” she said.

Victorique looked fed up. Smoking her pipe, she said, “Try using your noses.”

All four of them wrinkled their noses, but the smoke from Victorique’s pipe was in the way.

“Doesn’t it smell like fresh paint?” she said.

“Oh!”

Kazuya remembered the paint thinner he smelled. It had filled the entire lounge. It also probably contributed to their headache, not just the sleeping pills.

“And the wine I was studying. Do you remember, Kujou?”

He did. The bottle of wine. The glass she poured it into. He couldn’t believe himself for even suggesting that they were on a ghost ship. The power went out immediately after that, so he completely forgot about it.

“The same bottle of wine should be on this lounge’s bar.” Victorique pointed toward the counter, directing everyone’s gaze to it. The counter was lined with liquor bottles. “The wine I uncorked and poured into the glass has returned to its original spot. Isn’t that strange?”

“Ah…”

Kazuya couldn’t find the wine that Victorique had uncorked, nor the glass into which she had poured the contents. When he approached the counter and examined it, he found a sealed bottle with the same label on it.

Victorique beckoned Kazuya to her and took the bottle of wine. “This is wine from Sauville, brewed in 1890, that is, more than thirty years ago. It was probably on board the real Queen Berry, which sank ten years ago, so the culprit put this same wine here in an attempt to faithfully recreate it. But…”

Victorique shrugged. She uncorked the bottle and poured it into a dirty glass nearby. Like before, a bright reddish-purple liquid poured out of the bottle.

“The content is fake. You can see that it has the bright color of newly-brewed wine. Old wine has a much darker color. The aroma as well…” She lifted the glass to her nose. “It smells new.”

“What’s going on here?” Kazuya asked.

Victorique pointed to the label. “This brewery was burned down in the summer of 1914, when the Great War started. This wine is no longer available. So the culprit reproduced only the label and swapped it.”

The four of them looked at each other. They all wore anxious expressions.

“But what about the bloody writing on the wall?!” Maurice exclaimed. “This flooded lounge?! Where did the body go?!”

“You don’t have to shout, Maurice.” Victorique frowned. “I can hear you just fine.” She got up her chair and started walking. As she opened the door, she said, “I don’t think this is the room we were in before.”

“Huh?!”

“We went out to the deck once, then came back. We passed through the same corridor and entered this room. Why is that?”

“Because the door was open,” Julie answered. “The other rooms were closed.”

“Exactly. Kujou.”

Kazuya stood up. Victorique went out into the hallway and motioned him with her finger.

“Open the doors on this side in order.”

“Okay…”

Kazuya opened the door to the next room. It was a luxurious first-class cabin, with a chandelier hanging from the ceiling, a large canopied bed, and a soft sofa. The tablecloth and closet were also fancy.

He opened the next door. It was an identical cabin. The next few rooms all looked similar. Kazuya was getting tired.

He returned to the lounge, then opened the next door on the other side this time.

What he saw took his breath away. He turned to Victorique, his mouth flapping open and shut.

Victorique nodded and beckoned the other three. They all peered into the next room.

It was the same exact lounge, like a picture-perfect copy. Tables and a bar counter. A small stage. And…

Bloody writing on the wall.

A glass and an open bottle of wine sitting on the counter.

The corpse of a portly man, an arrow lodged in his head, lying on the floor.

Julie and Maurice screamed.

Kazuya turned around and saw Victorique nodding in satisfaction.

“This was the room we were in. I don’t know who closed and opened the doors, but this was a simple trick.”

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